I am planning a migration to the Appliance. One of the main reasons for this is the single process upgrade. Just login to the Appliance Admin page and click upgrade. I also Plan on using the Appliance because of the automated storage expansion. All it takes is a new Virtual Disk and a restart. It takes the little bit of brain work out of managing the ZCS Platform. As for how to migrate. There is a method where-by you upgrade your existing to 8. Then add the VM as a datastore, move all users to the new datastore, then promote the VM as the primary. I have not tested this yet. I am a little leery of doing so but I need it done.

I am planning a migration to the Appliance. One of the main reasons for this is the single process upgrade. Just login to the Appliance Admin page and click upgrade. I also Plan on using the Appliance because of the automated storage expansion. All it takes is a new Virtual Disk and a restart. It takes the little bit of brain work out of managing the ZCS Platform. As for how to migrate. There is a method where-by you upgrade your existing to 8. Then add the VM as a datastore, move all users to the new datastore, then promote the VM as the primary. I have not tested this yet. I am a little leery of doing so but I need it done.

You mean if I want to migrate to the Appliance, I will still need to upgrade my Zimbra 7 to 8 first? Since I'm running Ubuntu 8, this will also mean that I need to upgrade my Ubuntu to 10 or 12 first! This is something I'm trying to avoid and lead me to consider the Appliance in the first place!

btw, I'm wondering since Zimbra required a new OS for every 2 major updates, does the Appliance Admin page simple 1 click upgrade also upgrade the Appliance OS when Zimbra is releasing version 10 etc?

Unfourtunately yes, I would say that due to my experience trying to add the ZCS8 Appliance as a mailstore to a ZCS NE 7.2 Install, that Upgrading your primary install is going to be required. Also my reading on the appliance suggests that Zimbra will be controlling the OS upgrades as well. Most appliances are built with such a consideration. I have managed to add the ZCS 8 Appliance to my primary ZCS NE install after upgrading where I failed to be able to do so previously. I am just going to begin migrating users to the new server today.

Unfourtunately yes, I would say that due to my experience trying to add the ZCS8 Appliance as a mailstore to a ZCS NE 7.2 Install, that Upgrading your primary install is going to be required. Also my reading on the appliance suggests that Zimbra will be controlling the OS upgrades as well. Most appliances are built with such a consideration. I have managed to add the ZCS 8 Appliance to my primary ZCS NE install after upgrading where I failed to be able to do so previously. I am just going to begin migrating users to the new server today.

What was the reason you failed to do so previously? Will be great if you can compile your upgrade procedures and share with us.
I'm mainly concern with the OS upgrade as I'm more familiar with Windows and Mac rather than Linux.

I'm considering a migration from ZCS 7.1.3 to the Zimbra 8 Appliance as well. There is no direct upgrade path that I know of to go from ZCS to ZCA. I was considering using the zmztozmig tool to do it...Zimbra to Zimbra Migration - Zimbra :: Wiki

That would give me a fresh install of Zimbra without all the cruft we've accumulated through all the upgrades since 4.5. There will be some extra work involved doing it this way though, making sure all the settings and Zimlets are the same between the two installs, switching MTA settings for users as they migrate, etc...

One of the problems with this method is sharing. There is a note in the zmztozmig wiki that says if the account IDs between the two systems is the same, shares will migrate over as well....but only for accounts that have been migrated. I think that shares to accounts that are still on the old system will be broken until those accounts get migrated as well.

I'm still in the early planning stages of this and would love to hear other opinions.

Follow up thoughts...I'm trying to avoid upgrading the old mailboxes to 8.0 as that introduces it's own set of complexity. Can I just upgrade the LDAPs and MTAs and do the rolling upgrade method? Adding new 8.0 Appliance mailboxes....and leaving the old physical 7.1.3 mailboxes in place until all the accounts are off? Something like this perhaps?

Got a Zimbra Network Edition 7.20 on Centos 5. I'm thinking about moving to the Zimbra Appliance when i will do the update to zimbra 8. So basically this would mean:

1) Set up Zimbra Network Edition 7.20 on a Ubuntu
2) Moving Data to this Server
3) Inplace Update to Zimbra 8 on this Ubuntu
4) Migration somehow to Zimbra Appliance

Pretty time consuming....I wonder why it isnt possible to simply set up a Zimbra 8 Appliance and then make a restore of all the Mailboxes from the Zimbra 7.2 Network Edition Backup...

I believe you can make a restore from backup. But I'm not sure if the Appliance allow you to map the backup stored on your external storage into it for restoration. Can those already on the Appliance confirm this?

Also note the concern that during backup and restore process, there will be new email coming in that won't get restored to the Appliance. Unless you stop the zimbra services thru out the whole day process, which may be too long a downtime for the users?

I'm considering a migration from ZCS 7.1.3 to the Zimbra 8 Appliance as well. There is no direct upgrade path that I know of to go from ZCS to ZCA. I was considering using the zmztozmig tool to do it...Zimbra to Zimbra Migration - Zimbra :: Wiki

That would give me a fresh install of Zimbra without all the cruft we've accumulated through all the upgrades since 4.5. There will be some extra work involved doing it this way though, making sure all the settings and Zimlets are the same between the two installs, switching MTA settings for users as they migrate, etc...

One of the problems with this method is sharing. There is a note in the zmztozmig wiki that says if the account IDs between the two systems is the same, shares will migrate over as well....but only for accounts that have been migrated. I think that shares to accounts that are still on the old system will be broken until those accounts get migrated as well.

I'm still in the early planning stages of this and would love to hear other opinions.

Thanks,
Matt

This mean that to ensure that all shared will be migrated over, we will first have to import/create the accounts first before we import the data right?

I have 2 plans in mind:

1. Stop zimbra services and migrate everything over at 1 go. The new zimbra will take over completely. Not reconfiguration is required but users will be affected with a long period of downtime.

2. Create a second Zimbra server and migrate the accounts one domain at a time. This mean that the second Zimbra will not take over the first Zimbra as both will need to run concurrently. The new Zimbra will need new IP address and MX record will need to be updated one domain at a time too.